Ward of the White Worm

“Weigh it again, but don’t touch the scale.” Motzy ordered the clerk as she scrutinized the paper-wrapped bushel of flowers.

“Ma’am, this is the third time. I promise you, there’s no fudgery or falsity here,” the clerk sighed even as he did as was requested. “The blooms were just not particularly abundant this month.”

“So the good Earl is paying one pound nine pence for stems?” Motzy sounded scandalized. She looked towards Olli with slightly widened eyes, as though asking if Olli herself could believe such an outlandish suggestion.

“The stems are so the blooms can be fresh as long as possible.”

Olli stood beside Motzy, holding a basket of straw where two large spools of gold thread and three of silver sat within. She felt like she was being moral support for Motzy rather than any real help however, given how with every item brought before her Motzy would challenge the price due to weight or color or scent while occasionally glancing at her. She would continue challenging it until it was haggled into a lower price. Olli found the process somewhat strange since she had hazy recollections of waiting in line for a person to tell a faceless adult the exact price, and there being exactly no questions asked about it.

“A pound, and we will settle for no less.” The clerk said with a deep exasperated sigh.

“A pound is fair,” Motzy agreed, setting the coin down on the counter. She also pulled out her little notebook, scratching something down with a thin stub of charcoal, then set it back in one of the pockets hidden within the dingy folds of her skirt. She watched the clerk wrap up the blooms in yet more paper before handing it to another younger man. This man, who had been running back and forth between the clerk and outside to the wagon to carry things like boxes of candles (“One shilling and a thruppence per box!”), three jars of ink packed in straw (“Young man I will only pay seven shillings per bottle, and two pence for each box, and that is final!”), a jar of cuttlefish bone (“Eleven shillings sixpence, it’s a fair exchange, is’no?”), and what was basically a small oaken chest of tea where the fiercest argument over price had happened with Motzy ultimately coming out victorious with a payment of five pounds, six shillings, and seven pence.

Now that the spoils were safely packed on the wagon, all had been paid, and Motzy finished checking her little notebook one more time the two then left the shop that had been crowded largely behind a counter as a profusion of boxes and plinths with items and drawers with labels. They were back out into the lightly misty air of Watshire.

Watshire itself was only barely bigger than a village. Most of the buildings still had traditional thatched roofs, and all the larger more impressive brick and stone buildings were recent additions. They consisted of what Motzy had called a general store, an apothecary, the church, and the bakery (“the first building burnt down, but her ladyship funded the rebuilding!”). But even those had looked quaint to those in Saint-Grey, and even in Paeth. As Motzy had explained, both House Graef and Watshire were deep in the Scatherbone Forest, and the majority of Watshire’s traditional industry had been in very careful forestry.

Scatherbone trees were one of three different types of trees accepted into the graveyards of the Church. But there were also the Neighbors to worry about, meaning that here was always a balance to be maintained.

So as they walked from the general store over to the bakery right across the dirt road, Motzy pointed to another dirt road, one that trailed around two wooden houses and stopped abruptly before the trees that surrounded Watshire, “that’s a fairy road. When the men bring back lumber, they can only enter town upon that road.”

“Why?” Olli asked.

“It’s what the Neighbors want!” Motzy said, opening the door to the bakery. Immediately a mixture of smells wafted out over Olli and onto the street. Bread baking, roasting fowl or beef, sweet sugary cakes. There was a large counter set up front, dividing the room from the entrance to the back where massive ovens and open spits with meat on them. Quickly one woman came up to them, she was drenched in sweat and her face was sooty, with her dress being covered by a wet singed apron. “Oh hullo Mrs Handler.”

“Hullo to you too!” Motzy said. “Do you have the little honey-pins still?”

“Ah yes!” She replied. “But they’ll be sold by the apothecary after this month from now on. Keeping them in here is getting too messy. Still one penny for three!”

Motzy set the coin upon the counter and the woman took it, walking away from the counter and into another room set off to the side before she came back holding three small sticks that ended in a small round balls of clustered berries. She had wrapped them in a small amount of paper and handed them to Motzy, who then handed them to Olli. “Here you are, dear!”

“What is it?” Olli asked, turning them over in her hand. The sticks were a dense crunchy bread, more akin to a pretzel. They were fairly sticky, soaked as they were in sweet honey. The rounded ends were small balls of three or four berries of various colors squished together through hardened sugar and dough. She bit into it, and a mixture of tart berries, sweetness, and the crunch of the bread melded into a symphony of taste and texture. “This is good!”

“It’s a honey-pin! They’re very popular with children, why Theodore used to love them too!”

Olli glanced down at the two remaining honey-pins and then laid them in her basket. Motzy took her free hand and they left the bakery together, going back to the wagon that now held the boxes, jars, chest, and other items they had acquired. Above the sun was staring down at them as a single dim eye. As the horses were stirred into moving, a woman nearby swatted a boy who had nearly dashed onto the road.

They took a round-about path, going deeper into the village to get back onto the road they had taken to get in. In the middle of town was a church which stood alone except for its churchyard full of headstones with a single lonely statue of a woman with her head bowed and her hands in prayer in the middle. The church was strange to Olli, although she could not put her finger on why. It was made of white brick, with its bell tower instead being made of grey brick. The doors were a pale brown and were closed. The windows…

There were no windows.

Olli blinked. There were no windows to this church, which sat blindly within town.

They passed by the church, and went down the dirt avenue and past the gates with no words between them. Olli squinted into the distance on the road, past the horses, wondering if another Neighbor would appear.

After a moment she did see something.

It was not beside the road, or on the road, but was walking away into the trees. It was a shrouded figure, its head bent beneath the fabric. Its hands hung limply at its side. It wore no shoes, walking on ragged feet, and above its head was a dim little light that almost seemed to simply be the sun reflecting from the mist were it not for the fact the light was following it. “M-Motzy!” Olli shook her arm, pointing at the thing. “It-it’s another one!”

“Another Neighbor?” Motzy reached for her apron quickly before she looked at the walking spectre that continued to shrink into the distance. “...Ah! Silly girl, that’s just someone on Pilgrimage. Do not worry.”

“It’s not a Neighbor?”

“No, just someone on their way to see the Distant Gods,” Motzy shrugged, before she looked down at Olli with narrowing eyes, “hm, you know, dear, I don’t think you’ve been to church even once! Oh my, we really need to change that soon! I will need to talk to him about this…”

For some reason, Olli was a bit relieved Motzy had not asked anything and had distracted herself with muttering about the necessity of proper sunday clothes. She looked back to the shrouded figure, turning her head around as the wagon passed where their paths crossed. It was moving further, deeper in, then vanished from sight altogether.